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Welcome to "Visionary Voices" the podcast where we dive into the minds of business owners, founders, executives, and everyone in between.
Each episode brings you face-to-face with the leading lights of industry and innovation.
Join us as we uncover the stories behind the success and the lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or just starting your business journey, these are the conversations you need to hear - packed with visionary voices and insights.
Let's begin.
So welcome to the show.
Could you give us a top level view of what it is that you do right now and your journey so
far?
Absolutely Akhil.
Thank you.
It's wonderful to be here.
I'm excited about our conversation coming.
So what got me here?
So I've always been involved in leadership development.
So what I do now is through a series my whole career has been around developing other
leaders, but then also being a leader even at the executive level.
And so now what I like to do is come alongside leaders who are trying to identify what
kind of leader they want to be, how they want to experience it and move their business
forward.
Right?
So the...
they call the hard and the soft skills maybe along those lines, but trying to help equip
them, help them to figure out their path, their journey, come alongside, be that sounding
board, that confidant, that person who challenges, that person who questions, but that
safe space for that leader to really figure out their path forward and who they want to
intentionally be as a leader of their organization.
Very cool.
And how did you get into this line of work?
Because I know a lot of people, go from corporate to then starting their business.
So was that the same journey you had or what was that journey for you?
Yes, I kind of went back and forth.
So I was in corporate and started in the world of training.
So I think that helped me with facilitation and speaking skills and things like that and
how to present ideas and motivate.
But then I also was in operations for years where I was actually helping to drive the
businesses forward that I was in.
But when I was with T-Mobile in about a nine, 10 year span in there, one of the seats that
I was in was a leadership development manager.
And the goal was to help
bring training, information, insights to leaders, and then they would go apply them.
What I found out was that none of us really change old patterns unless there's someone
alongside to help us figure out how to do that, how to take concepts, apply them.
And so I went back to my boss at T-Mobile and said, hey, I've heard about this poke thing
out there.
It was fairly new, right?
It was early 2000s, it was fairly new.
And I'd like to explore that because what I understand is that is about really creating
change, becoming more effective, trying new things and implementing them and having the
support to help you to do that.
was fully supported by my supervisor, by T-Mobile, who also believed in coaching as an
organization, went through coach training certification, did that internally within the
corporation for several years.
And then when I left T-Mobile, started my first business doing executive coaching and team
coaching and things along those lines.
then got a knock on my door from a local tech company that asked if I would come in and
serve on their executive team and help them with culture, leadership, development, ended
up managing all of HR operations for them.
So again, got to really experience some of those concepts, learn and grow, make all the
same mistakes, right?
We got acquired from another company, stayed on for about 18 months to join those together
and really felt called back into this coming alongside other leaders, sharing all the
The things that I've experienced, I read a ton.
So a lot of things out there that I've read about having just gone through an &A, which
can be very challenging as a leader and being able to then maybe share that with other
leaders who are going through some of those same challenges and be alongside to walk with
that, walk through that with them.
Wow, so quite a journey, I would say, off the back of that.
Yeah, no, definitely.
I mean, I love to unpack that a little bit.
I mean, when you were, from a mindset point of view to start with, when you went from
corporate to then working for yourself and then back into corporate, how were those
mindset shifts?
Because I've done a similar thing where I was in corporate and then I kind of worked for
myself for a little bit and then I started working in the startup as well.
And then I went back to working for myself.
And for me, was like, it was such a
big shifts and big pivots that to make him the mindset of things.
So for you, what did you, what challenges did you have or what was your thought patterns
when you're kind of moving in and out of these different scenarios and these different
roles that you had over that period of time?
yeah, that's a great question, Akil.
Yeah, I think you go, especially when you have your own business and you're kind of going
solo, right?
And you can make decisions really quick.
You don't have to really consult.
mean, obviously, hopefully you have mentors around you and you have others that you can
bounce ideas off.
But ultimately, so many times the decision is yours, right?
And so I don't know if you're familiar with CliftonStrengths, but Activator is like my
number one strength that I have, which means, you know,
idea pops in my head, I'm gonna act on it.
Well, when you're an entrepreneur, solopreneur, right, you can do that.
It's not always pretty, but you can do that, right?
And nobody's, you're not hopefully impacting so many others.
When you go back into the corporate world, as probably you also experienced, was now of a
sudden I gotta slow things down and I have to consult others and I have to ask more
questions and I have to really tap into my resources in a much heavier, deeper way.
And that took a while for me to get used to that muscle of not just,
you know, acting on impulse, thinking I've got all the answers, right?
And realizing that no, when you're leading within an organization, you have to bring
others along with you.
You can't just leave them in the dust.
So you've got to be a lot more intentional and methodical, right?
About how you introduce ideas, how you carry them forward, getting their input, and really
operating as a team, which it sounds like that, that is, gosh, that'd be such a challenge.
And it is, but it's also really fulfilling because now,
you're not operating completely by yourself.
You have a team to come with you, a team to celebrate with, a team to back you up when you
don't have all the answers, right?
And so there's obviously a trade-off, but I think that's probably the biggest mind shift
that I had to make.
Yeah.
And I completely resonate with that because again, I'm, I'm similar to you where once an
idea comes into my head, I just want to execute on it and build that thing out.
Um, but I did find, you know, when I moved back into, you know, the working world, say is
it did allow me to, to start thinking, you know, getting these ideas in, but then actually
thinking, okay, do I need to execute on this now or like, what's the strategy there?
And that was a skill that I just didn't have before.
And when I didn't have it before, like it was good because I can build things quickly, but
at the same time,
I could build the wrong thing quickly and kind of waste time resources doing that.
And so it wasn't always the best.
So when I moved back into corporate myself or what just working a job is I just learned so
much more about business in general and strategies and everything that I can then apply it
to the, new business that we have today.
So did you find something like that where you kind of went back into, you know, the
operations and HR and then obviously go through the merge and acquisitions and then the
skills you develop there, you managed to then take into the business that you have today
as well.
Exactly.
Yes.
And I think some of the frustrations that come with, you know, change and all of that,
that so many organizations now are dealing with so much fast change with technology and
everything, right?
And a lot of entrepreneurs, I work with a lot of what tend to be founders of the
organizations that I'm in, and they're used to being able to move so fast.
And so I can share the pain that that was for me going in and realizing, okay, I can't do
this by myself.
And if I don't,
bring people with me or even I get on their bus if they've got the right vision, you're
not gonna get very far, you're not gonna get anywhere.
And to your point, I love that idea that, yeah, you can have a great idea, but if you
don't really go through and aren't asking the right questions and others aren't asking the
right questions, that whole, what they call the kind of the red teaming, finding out the,
won't this work, right?
Because in your head, of course it's gonna work.
If you don't have that around you to help push and challenge and question, then yeah, you
can be.
know, miles down the wrong road.
And then by the time you get there, you've put a lot of energy and effort into something
that's not gonna come to fruition.
yeah, so trying to help, and because I was in part of a tech, I was in the tech company,
was still, the CEO was still the founder.
So I knew what it was like to work with a founder and then to go through obviously an M &A
situation and the pain that that can be sometimes, but also...
also triggers new ways of thinking and problem solving and all of that.
Yeah, that was probably the biggest aha for me going through that and that pain was like,
wow, from what I've learned through going this, can I share that with other leaders?
Can I help them maybe either get through that quicker or not hit the pitfalls that I
experienced or others around me experienced?
Can I help ease that or quicken that process so they're able to make shifts and
adjustments quicker?
right, to get make sure they are on the right road and they're getting there in the right
way.
Yeah, no, definitely.
And I love what you said there about, you know, when you did move back into the working
side of things is you were still working, you know, with the founder.
And so you had that control, right?
They say that you have the, the ways to actually change the business because I was on a
podcast, I actually got invited on someone else's podcast a few months back and we're
talking about this.
And, and I was saying for me, as like a, you know, a new entrepreneur, let's say, or like
a younger entrepreneur is, know, there's a lot of things we just don't know about
business.
And so there's a lot of people my age that are like my friends that
They've gone into business, they started a business and they do, you know, get up to a
certain point, but then they just don't understand how businesses operate at different
scales to be able to apply to their business and scale their one.
And so I said, you know, for me, when I moved back into, know, like a nine to five, let's
say from being an entrepreneur, which sounds very counterintuitive to people, you know,
when you're talking about entrepreneurship, but for me, it was such a, such a catalyst,
but at the same time, I did have that control over the business to change the business a
little bit more.
but I also want to dive into.
the mergers and acquisitions you went through as well, because for a lot of entrepreneurs
who are scaling their business, that's kind of the goal they might have to exit their
business one day.
So, I mean, what was that process like for you and how did you also manage the, I guess
the team and the transition there, because obviously it's a big shock for everyone, right?
If you're merging different things together.
So how was that for you and how did you manage the operations there?
any &A merger acquisition is a challenge, right?
There's good that comes out of it.
That's the whole goal, right?
Is to bring your resources together and both knowledge and everything.
But to put on top of that, we were actually bought in December of 2019.
So you know what 2020 brought, right?
The world knows what 2020 brought.
And so that just added, right?
We had this huge
global unknown pandemic, right?
Of how are going to do that?
And not knowing how that was going to organizations, businesses, know, everybody's out of
the office.
Just, there was just a whole lot of stuff to make it even murkier, right?
Of how we, of how we step forward.
And we had a third of our office, the new office after the, after the merger, or really
acquisition, was in New Zealand.
You know, a third was on the West coast.
A third was here in Colorado.
And so, you know, it just made the dynamics that much crazier.
But it also made us really creative, right?
On how to build, how do you build relationship and trust when you are, and this is before
we were all virtual, right?
It was just kind of on the cusp of that.
So you're going through this touchy, feels like, you know, a bed of coals that you're
walking across in the situation because one, the company that's acquiring the other
company is trying to do it in a way that builds trust with that new, the people, the
culture.
in the company that they're buying.
And so sometimes they walk into it a little bit tenderly and kind of say, well, this is a
merger when in reality it is an acquisition.
And that mindset is different, right?
If it's a merger, that means equal voice, equal say, you would think, right?
We're all going to be at the table.
We're going to figure out the...
Well, most &As don't go that way.
Almost, you know, none of them.
The acquiring company has a vision in mind that they've had there for a while before they
even bought you.
And so, you let's just be honest about it.
Let's put our cards all on the table and let's understand that the acquiring company has
this vision.
There's a purpose at the end goal that they have in mind.
Let's be transparent and open about it and let people have a chance to get on board with
it versus kind of sort of hiding it behind the curtain and not being really, really honest
with what the ultimate goals are and where we're headed.
Right.
And so I've come across other organizations where there was a
an &A or an acquisition and nothing's going to change.
Well, yeah, a lot's going to change, right?
And so we go in with that intent.
I'm not saying that they went in or any company comes in saying, you know, we're going to
lie to you.
That's not really where they're coming from.
It's not their intent, but it's the reality of what happens.
And so I think one of the things that I experienced in that was the importance to be just
upfront, right off the bat with here's where we're going.
The other side, though, too, is I don't think you want to discount the voices of the
company you just bought.
because they're the ones who built this product or service you're buying.
You feel like it's got value, right?
So how did they get there?
And so I think it is important to bring them into the conversations, but understand there
is a power differential and there's going to be, and that's okay, but how do we go into it
honestly, transparently, and how do we unify around the common goals and just be upfront
with it from day one and figure out, okay, how do we now organize that situation?
I think a lot of...
founders will sell their company and tend to stay on for a while and that doesn't usually
go well either because again, they had their original vision, the acquirer has a new
vision and that's really hard for them to give up sometimes.
so again, let's just put that on the table.
Let's talk about what is the best way to move forward in this scenario.
Yeah, I think my takeaway there is just confronting what it is with the team and the wider
company, because ultimately if it is a little bit like smoke and mirrors in the beginning,
they're going to find out eventually.
And so you'd rather be upfront and honest with them and be like, hey, this is what it is.
This is what we need to do to get through this.
I mean, how did you, you know, make the team come together with like during that time?
Because again, so much uncertainty, not only did you have the acquisition, but you also
had then, you know, COVID on the horizon as well, where again, so much uncertainty.
So.
how did you manage that from a team point of view and I guess the HR point of view as well
to make people not worried or to reassure them in any ways and just keep the team
effective, I would say, and moving forward.
Yeah, great question, Akhil.
So I think some of it is we had to find some common ground.
So a lot of it was getting to know each other.
So from the HR perspective, leading the two teams was we tried to meet as often as we
could.
And some of those meetings were just, hey, tell me about, let's talk about our weekend.
Or Friday afternoon, hey, well, who's got plans for the weekend, right?
So a lot of water cooler, coffee machine talk that just helped us to get to know each
other.
We actually did, we would create these slides and we'd have these questions in every
meeting that we had team meeting, one person got showcased from the team.
And so you learned about them and you learned about some personal things about them.
How many children do they have?
Where do they like to travel?
know, what are their hobbies?
That type of thing.
And so really trying to speed that up, you know, in a virtual world, so to speak, and
realize that you've got to be intentional about it.
It's not going to happen otherwise.
And so trying to build that.
sense of identity and what do we have in common and where can we connect?
I think the other piece and even from across the organization was projects, right?
Which sounds a little crazy, but bring these two groups, if you wanna say so to speak,
bring some of those people together to work aligned on a project, to have a common goal,
to have something that they're working together to move towards instead of, well, they do
this and they do this, right?
Type of thing.
If you can unify them around some projects, some strategies, some goals, now they have,
again, that thing that's in common to rally around, to work together towards, and then
just a lot, a lot of checkups.
And it sounds counterintuitive.
We always hear, I have a lot of clients saying to me, we have too many meetings, right?
And my response is, you have too many ineffective meetings.
Because the reality is you have to meet, you have to come together if you're gonna
collaborate.
And so, you know, how do you make those effective?
That means having a goal for those meetings together, those conversations, here's what
we're trying to reach, here's what we're trying to do, and then invite everybody into that
conversation.
So that was a big one is, you know, find as much as you can in common, keep that on the
table, keep getting to know each other.
But then if you can create some projects, common goals, something to rally around that
they now can find is uniting, that can be really huge and kind of speed up that process of
coming together.
Yeah, I love what you said there about having the project for them to work together on.
Because I know in the teams that I've worked in, the company obviously has the mission and
people buy into that.
But at the same time, on the micro, you do need to have those goals, those projects where
people can push towards, right?
They know they're working towards this thing.
And so, as you said, right, if you have different people in different areas and you need
them to come together and act as a team together, then the project is a great way to do it
because you're setting them together like a goal to achieve.
or a project to achieve.
And so I think that's a really cool way to do it.
And then also what you said about,
a great, sorry to interrupt, but a great foundation for that is around your strategic
plan.
So obviously, my hope is that the acquiring organization has a strategic plan in place,
and this was part of their strategy, right, was to acquire this business.
Now be upfront with that strategic plan.
I just came off of a three-day retreat with a global organization in Chicago a couple of
weeks ago, and one of the things that we did was we broke them up into
groups and they were intermingled groups so they weren't function divided functionally
they actually had representation from all over the organization and we gave each of them
one of the initiatives to talk through that's in the strategic plan right once you did a
couple things one is they they realized where the alignment was at we all want this is all
these things lead towards the mission of the organization accomplishing it but now they
had equal voices and they got to share from their own perspectives if they were from
marketing or finance or
you know, sales or HR, right?
They got a chance or operations, they got a chance to share their perspective around that
and how each of those entities was going to be supporting that.
so strategic plan is one of the best places to start creating that unity because again, it
creates our common goal.
And you're now pulling in voices from all of cross-organization to unite around what's
going to help that mission happen.
And what I also love about that is, you know, as you said, you're getting different
departments to come together to talk about this.
And so often in a lot of companies is different departments don't actually talk to each
other, which is quite interesting.
So it's always like, you know, finance should be doing this, but we don't, we've never
actually spoken to finance.
We don't actually know what they do.
And so if you can bring them together, yeah.
And when you can have that conversation and you can actually understand, that's what they
do.
So that's what they work on.
that makes sense.
But
you're very oblivious to it unless you actually go and speak to those people.
And it goes back to your earlier point about essentially community, I guess, within the
company itself is fostering a way to build a sense of community within the team dynamic
itself.
Because I know when I worked in in corporate before is, again, all the teams are very much
siloed, and they just weren't working together very well.
And it's added so much friction and bureaucracy to getting decisions made and processes
started and projects working on.
because everyone's kind of butting heads and trying to get one up on each team.
And it's like, no, we need to work together on it.
Otherwise the team dynamic across the company just won't function.
And so guess pivoting into the work you do now from your business.
So what does that look like from the service delivery point of view?
Like how do you create this change within companies when you go in and work with them?
Yeah, so Strata kind of starts, we try to start at the top of the food chain, so to speak,
right?
We really want to hear what is the perspective at the executive level.
So whether it's the founder or CEO or wearing both hats or in their executive team is, and
first of all, sometimes it is helping them to find that executive team because if they've
grown up, they a lot of times haven't clearly defined that, right?
Which makes sense.
They don't have the structure in place maybe yet that they will need down the road.
But first of all, it's trying to hear what is their vision and where do they want the
organization to go?
What are their goals?
Do they have clarity around their mission and their vision?
And is it only owned by the founder or does the rest of executive team get it too?
So that's always fun, is to explore that.
So a of times I'll ask individually or through surveys, what is their understanding of the
mission and the vision?
And it's always interesting to see how close or how far apart different people's
understanding of that mission and vision.
So really it's trying to rally.
that executive team around that.
then, you know, for them to, and then to try to identify what are some of the pain points,
what are some of the roadblocks getting in the way.
And a lot of time it's because the rest of organization has no clue what that strategic
plan is.
And they may not even have clarity around the mission and the vision, right?
And the culture that's expected to get them there.
And so a lot of it is just helping that executive team understand they've got to push that
information down.
They're living in it all the time.
the front line is not, right?
So how do we get in front of them a lot?
How do we create energy and excitement around it?
How do we get input from the people that are actually gonna be executing the plan, right?
How do we get their input on what it's gonna take to do that?
And so doing a lot of work around refining that strategic plan or creating it if they
don't have one, communicating it out, equipping leaders then to be able to rally the
troops, so to speak, to get everybody excited around it, keep it in front of them, talking
about it all the time.
and then making sure the information is flowing back and forth.
we bring coaching, we'll bring team coaching and one-to-one coaching in.
So again, you're trying to provide that support for the individual leaders as well as some
of the senior leadership teams on how to be united.
One of the things that the last tech company I was at that I felt like we did really well
was we were seen as being united that, and Patrick Lencioni talks about this, about your
first team.
And when you're at the executive level, your first team is not your downline.
Your first team is your peers.
It's the other executives on your team.
But yet everything pulls us into that functioning team because we hire the people, we
represent the people, we do the same work as those people, right?
And so we feel like we have this tie to them that's stronger than maybe if I'm in HR or
people side of the house, I might have a clue what software development does, right?
I don't know how to code for anything.
And so I may not see them as, you know, the CTO as my team now and the CMO or whoever,
head of marketing, know, head of finance, all of those things, because we live in
different worlds.
But how important it is for that executive team to see them, those peers as their first
team, that they have that commitment to and over communicate with and spend more time with
and things like that.
And once you do that, now you've got a consistent message going throughout the
organization.
So we coach a lot around that.
how to help that executive team operate in a first team mindset.
And then how do you then cascade that information down and then equip the leaders in your
functional area to deliver on that strategic plan to actually execute on it.
that makes so much sense is seeing the first executive team as a team, let's say.
And it sounds so simple, but it makes so much sense because they said that they are siloed
in what it is that they work on, but you got to try and bring them together.
You mentioned a few times about the strategic plan.
So what does that look like from, I guess, creating one and what would you say needs to be
in it from a top level view, of course?
Just so if people don't have one, they can start maybe building their own or even updating
it with how they should be laying that out.
Great question.
And we just did that in December for Strada came together and said, okay, we're doing this
for other people.
You know, we got to we need to keep working on our strategic plan.
So a big part of it is understanding, you know, why your organization exists to begin
with, what is our mission?
And the reason behind that, Simon Sinek wrote a book called The Infinite Game is that if
we don't keep our eye on why we exist and why we were created in the first place, we can
start spreading our wings too, too far out there in our attention out there and we lose
sight
of that one thing that really we were, our dream, our vision from the very beginning,
right?
And you see a lot of companies die because of that.
They get spread too thin, they lose focus, and so they're putting resources in all
different directions and they struggle staying on the path that they originally were
created for.
So there's gotta be a clear understanding why, why do we exist?
Then the vision and who do we wanna be down the road?
And used to you would plan for 10 years down the road.
Well, nobody plans for 10 years down the road now, right?
things are changing way too fast.
So usually it's a three to five year time frame realizing, and I always tell them, it's
probably going to change even in that three to five years, right?
And that's okay.
That's okay.
This is not in concrete.
We don't have to jackhammer it out, right?
We can make adjustments along the way, but we need to have a framework at least.
So who do we want to be in three to five years?
And really defining that, you know, what kind of revenue impacts, you know, even the size
of our staff, what do want that to look like?
So really trying to
paint this picture of who we're gonna be in three to five years, right?
And share that vision.
Then you've got to have an understanding of your culture, which culture comes really from
the values, right?
What are the values of our organization?
How do we want to treat each other?
How do we want to behave?
What's the mindset we're asking everyone in our organization to align on?
And so understanding what are those key principles that are gonna help us be effective and
create the culture that we want that's gonna not only attract new people that have that
same mindset, but also...
keep the people that have that mindset with that organization and keep them for years,
right?
Keep them there for a long time.
Then you've got to start out to that, whatever your target is, that three or that five
years and say, okay, now we've kind of got this picture of our vision.
Let's nail it down a little bit stronger.
Let's get a little bit more into the details.
And then we kind of drill that back to our year one, so next year.
So if we're planning for next year, that's where you start to get into, what are the
things we have to do in the next year
to keep us on the track to get to where we wanna be in three to five years.
So you usually go four to seven key initiatives and that's the most, but you're not
necessarily rolling them all out at once.
So you might only roll out one or two of those key initiatives, you sign ownership to
that, you let others step in, not just the CEO, you actually have others, executives that
step in and own that, doesn't mean they're the sole do-in-it, but now you have some
cross-functional teams a lot of times that come under that umbrella of that initiative.
but you got to have measurements around it.
This happens every time though.
So you go and you do a two, three day, four day strategic planning retreat.
Then they get back to work and I get on a Zoom call with them and they're like, we don't
have time to do the strategic plan.
And it's like, I agree, I believe you 100 % because guess what?
All that stuff you were doing before the strategic plan didn't stop.
And so then you start, what we do is we come along and we help
coach them along that, how do they begin to create space to now start bringing that
strategic plan to life, right?
And start executing on it.
And it doesn't happen overnight.
But how do we help them understand how to prioritize, how to set goals, how to, and the
biggest thing I run into is decision-making is way too at the top.
Authority and decision-making is way, way up here.
So how do you cascade some of that down?
now,
the individuals at that director level, manager level are getting to make some decisions
and they're not having to bring them up to you all the time.
So now that's freeing you up some space and time to tackle the things that are really
critical to the organization moving forward.
So that's where the coaching piece comes along is helping them to redesign kind of where
their world, their focus, their decision-making, the authority, accountability within the
organization so that now they can actually execute on that strategic plan.
Yeah, so it's about making sure, okay, you make the plan, but you also need to stick to
the plan at the same time, to put it simply, right?
Is making sure, because I mean, so many times, I mean, I've done it a lot myself where,
you know, we set out a big, a long list of goals we want to do for next year, and then you
get to the end of the year, and you've done like a handful of them, right?
Because you just have so much on your plate as well.
And it goes back to your point of having, you know, just four to seven key initiatives
when it comes down to the strategic plan of where you want to get to.
I think I think that's so important in terms of the goal setting principle, even even at
all levels, right, even for employees that you have, or the executive leadership team, or
even, you know, anyone else within the company is when you are making the plans for them
is also, you know, just a handful of things or initiatives that make sense for them.
Because otherwise, so many times you just get lost in the sea of goals that you have.
But it's also a difficult one, right?
Because at the same time is within obviously, those key initiatives, there could be a
billion different tasks you need to get done to make it work.
And so it's like, okay, well, how do we prioritize and manage that list of things we need
to do?
But again, it just comes down to the strategy of it.
And as you said, right, is creating champions, I guess, around those initiatives to bring
that to life.
And then for those teams to work together and creating that effective team, essentially.
And it's so energizing, right?
When you spread down that responsibility for those initiatives and you break them down,
like you said, a lot of times they have multiple tasks that are involved and those may be
in different parts of the organization, but then you allow different leaders to step up,
different project groups, whatever that looks like, to come on.
It creates this incredible energy and excitement around it, right?
Because now if you're able to keep them...
tied into how what they're doing is driving the company forward and it's critical and it's
important.
That's what people want.
Everybody wants to go into a job and feel like they're making a difference and an impact,
right?
And they're helping the organization push forward and achieve its vision, who it wants to
be.
Nobody wants to sit there and just feel like, you know, I'm doing the same thing day in
and day out.
You know, I want to know there's a purpose behind it.
And so the energy that that creates is amazing.
And then the unity, because we're unified around those.
you know, four to seven.
And again, you're not doing all four to seven all at the same time, right?
You're rolling a couple out this quarter.
Some are carried over.
Now you're starting some new ones the next quarter, right?
Or then in six months.
And so you're creating kind of this continual and you kind of get that flywheel of energy
going moving forward.
As you're accomplishing this one, now you're taking on the next one, right?
And, and it keeps everybody focused.
So we have limited resources, whether that's finances or time or energy or focus, you
know, they're not endless.
And so we want to zero that those resources in on the things that are really move the
business forward.
Yeah, no, no, definitely.
And I like what you said there about, you know, when people do have those initiatives
there, that then they can, they can rally towards that.
Right.
And it gives them, it shows them that they're making progress within the company or the,
or the company's moving forward.
Because again, I've been in jobs before where, know, the corporate setting I was in, it
was, you know, huge company, like tens of thousands of people working in the company.
And so the work that you do that you spend, you know, eight, nine hours a day doing, you
don't actually see what it impacts within the business itself.
right.
cool when you do work with businesses, mean, from my business and working with founders
and teams there, it is so cool to see us implement something and then it actually generate
the results that they're looking for.
And then they're like, that they're the next level now and then we can do the next thing.
And that's so cool.
But scaling that down to the employee level or levels is showing how their work is
actually impacting towards the initiative and then the goal of the company itself.
I think that's so powerful.
And I think it's just a slight shift from the way you might already be doing your goals
and your strategy and everything.
It's just making it visible to the wider company is essentially all it is and showing
them, these tasks that you do, this is how it impacts this initiative, which then gets us
to this goal within the next two to three years, which is so amazing.
So I love that plan there.
And then guess changing gears a little bit is something I always love to touch on is how
AI could be...
changing the workplace and the work that you're doing as well.
So what have you seen in the marketplace and in the work that you're doing?
How has AI come in?
How has it disrupted things and how is it changing and moving things forward as well?
Yeah, yeah.
So AI, that's the talk of the town, right?
We are there.
So I think AI, again, like any new technology or anything like that, can have huge
rewards.
But then we also have to be aware of some of the drawbacks from it.
So some of the rewards are just work that maybe took brain power that we didn't need to
put on, writing a job description or.
know, coming up with a communication or something like that, right?
That would take a lot of energy from us.
We don't necessarily have to do anymore, right?
We can throw that into AI, dealing with frontline customer issues, right?
And being able, AI to truly be able to solve their problem so that we can be on the bigger
and better things, you know, type of thing with the organization moving forward.
So think there's tons of ways that AI as it continues to learn and grow, we can learn from
it, it can learn from us, right?
I think it's going to be a huge resource.
so that we can even elevate where we're thinking.
We're thinking more strategically, right?
My concern though, is that if we get too lazy and we just expect AI to do all of our
thinking for us, we aren't gonna be able to think strategic.
Maybe we have the window of opportunity, we have the bandwidth now, we have the time to do
it, but we don't know how to think critically because we stopped doing it and we let AI do
it all for us, right?
And so my concern is that if we're not careful and we don't keep exercising that brain
power, that muscle,
and challenging ourselves to continue to think critically and strategically and keep those
conversations going is that we'll get a little too lazy with that or we won't be able to
do that.
So I think a lot of organizations have to figure out, okay, yes, let's use it over here
where, you know, we can call those people up the higher, greater ways of thinking and
doing things, but let's be sure that we still are, whether that's through training and
development, whether that's through coaching, whether that's through
exercise, probably all of the above need to happen, right?
Through experience and mentoring.
We need to be sure we're still challenging people to think critically and they're not just
handing everything over to AI.
So let's give them opportunities.
Again, that's where that authority, that responsibility, accountability, we push it down
throughout the organization.
We allow people to have that accountability, to grow, to take on challenges, to not always
have the right answers, but to figure it out.
Mm.
we're have to be very intentional as organizations to be sure we're still challenging
people in the way that they're thinking and their problem solving skills, because that's
what we need in order to be strategic and to keep moving forward.
Yeah, I completely agree.
think I will, I know from the company I've spoken to already, you through this podcast and
other channels as well is a lot of them are, you know, for the, those processes are so,
um, either mundane or just easy to, to now delegate to AI.
Yeah, sure.
Like they can, it can do it.
But at the same time, they're just not taking the jump into, okay, we need to completely
change the way this department is running because of AI, say, because they want to
maintain that edge that they have from, from the team that they have already, let's say.
So I completely agree with the strategy side of things is how do we keep training that
muscle at the same time?
But then it's also very difficult because then you think, and if, well, with AI, like
it's, it is very clever, right?
So if we can use it within our strategy and how do we maybe use it at the same time within
our strategy as well?
I think, I think when it comes down to strategy, it's going to be a case of, okay, AI
might help build the strategy, but what are the inputs we're going to give AI to build the
strategy?
And that's where the
The strategy we'll use will come in, right?
The strategy to form a strategy type of thing.
And that's where thinking is probably going to move into a little bit more.
But again, it's such an interesting time because I spoke to a guest recently a few days
ago.
Again, we're talking about AI and they were saying, well, with communication is also going
to be an interesting one because even if, for example, emails, right?
Like sending out emails for us to reply to clients, customers, teams, whatever is well,
even that micro action of communication.
how's that going to affect everyone's communication skills?
know, little things like that.
It's going to be so interesting to extrapolate that over the next five to 10 years and
see, how is this going to impact, you know, the marketplace in different departments and
how a company is going to overcome that change as well.
Which is where, you know, going back to the very start of our conversation on, you know,
we need to make sure even in times of uncertainty is as long as the team's working
together and we can get that sense of community, then we are going to be moving forward
and we'll be able to adapt and overcome things.
But it all starts with...
community that we have from the company itself.
And collaboration and opportunities for collaboration, right, to come together.
Because you're right, it's that input, it makes all the difference in the world.
And so, you know, are we setting aside time to go and collaborate together?
Are we, without distractions, without any AI available, right?
Are we just getting in a room or going out somewhere, whether it's nature, whatever, to
just spend time to collaborate, to play off?
There's a methodology called conversational intelligence.
And it's the idea, it talks about what's going on in your brain in conversation, right?
And the neurons that are going on and off and all that that's happening in the cortisol
and all of that.
But she talks a lot also about mirror neurons and how when we get in that zone together
through collaboration and brainstorming, how we begin to build, right?
On each other's thoughts and perspectives.
And so we've got to create space to do that.
And which means we've got to get out and if AI can take some of the menial task off our
plate,
It should free up opportunity to now be more collaborative and be more thought provoking
and be more challenging, but we have to be disciplined to set that time aside and then to
have the time to collaborate, brainstorm, come up with new ideas.
Then yeah, we can feed that back into AI and say, okay, take all of this information and
contextualize it and put it together for us.
But you're right, it starts with the input and that comes from our creative thinking.
and our abilities to problem solve.
And so we've got to be sure we're creating space for that and being very disciplined
around it.
It's so interesting what he said about conversational AI there, because whenever I've been
speaking to people, said, you know, through these podcasts and these talks that other
people, it's so cool what can come up, right?
Things we don't expect, we just lead into different things, but I never knew what it was
called.
So yeah, now I do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the conversational, like intelligence piece, guess, you building from, from
conversations that you have, it makes so much sense and it, it covers things that you just
didn't know before.
And obviously when it comes down to AI, if you're doing the input and,
you know, need to think of new things that's going to come up through the conversation
that you had as to your point before.
So yeah, I it's going to be a very interesting time for sure with companies and how they
overcome AI or implement it or whatever they do with it.
But in the next five years, how companies are going to have to change, because if they
don't change and adapt with the times, then companies that do might just supersede them
and roll them over for sure.
And then, you know, one of the final questions that we always ask guests on the show is
If you can go back to your 18 year old self and you can only take three things with you,
whether it's some mindset knowledge, some philosophical knowledge, or just some technical
knowledge that you have right now, what would those three things be, or those three
lessons be, and why would it be those things?
That's a deep question, because that was a long time ago for me.
I would say, you you mentioned mindset.
I would say, you know, one of the things would be learning to slow down and ask more
questions, right?
To be more curious.
I've learned that through my years as a coach, and I still, being an Activator, I have to
slow myself down a little bit.
You know, I want to execute, I want to do.
But, but to be able to just be more curious about everything, right, would be a huge
mindset, I think.
tool that I would carry forward of just asking more questions, making less assumptions,
engaging more dialogue, listening to different perspectives.
All of those types of things I think would be really important.
The second one would be kind of be an intentionality.
So have a vision of who I want to be, 20, 30, 40 years down the road.
How do I want people to experience me?
How would I want them to describe me?
You know, so it's kind of those my own values or my leadership values or just personal
values, right, of what that looks like.
So that, and be a little more intentional about, okay, what do I need to do then to live
into that for people to experience me that way?
So that would be just that whole idea of intentionality is just huge.
And so it's having a plan, realizing it can change, it can get tweaked, it can, you know,
take on a different life down the road, but at least I'm being intentional where I'm at
right now, where my feet are taking me, right?
Mmm.
physically, mentally, psychologically, socially, all of that spiritually, to just have, be
intentional about it, right?
And have some vision of myself down there.
So that'd be two.
I think the third one, given how fast technology has changed, is just embracing change and
a lot of that driven by technology.
Just seeing what we've seen over the last 20 years, right?
It's just been in...
I mean, I still remember when we didn't have cell phones.
That's how old I am, right?
So now we've got these incredible computers, right, that we use.
And so I think it would be to really, really be excited about and embrace technology and
the change that comes with that.
And again, adding that intentionality in there, that curiosity in there, but really
embracing technology, not blindly, I don't mean that, but just getting excited about it
and seeing what are the...
and possibilities as a result of that, but then also being quite aware of what are the
things that we need to be careful of, right?
We know some of the cultural ramifications of social media out there right now, especially
on our kids.
I don't think we thought about that at the time.
And now we're having to figure out the damage that we've done and how do we come back and
we fix that and repair that and overcome that.
seeing both sides of what can be, the possibilities that can be, but then also what are
some of the pitfalls that it might create too.
being able to cover for those, I guess.
I think there's some great lessons in there.
And it's so interesting when you're saying that last point, I was then thinking, with AI
and the kids today, they're going to be growing up with just AI really.
And so how is that going to affect or enhance different capabilities that they have as
well?
And that might be something in the future we're looking back saying, oh, we need to figure
out how we're going to solve this now, like, you know, with AI it's caused all these
things with the kids today.
And so it's going to be interesting to see how that develops.
But I think there's some great lessons there.
So thank you so much for taking the time to come onto the show.
Where can people find you if they want to learn more about you and see some of your work
and maybe get in contact with you as well?
Yeah, so it's been awesome.
It's been really fun, Akil.
I've enjoyed the conversation in there.
So thank you for having me.
They can find us out there on our website is strata-consulting.com.
They can find me on LinkedIn, Sandra Calhoun, pretty easy.
Or we also have Strata Consulting out there on LinkedIn as well.
So they can find us through there.
Yeah, those are probably the two key places.
They can email me, scalhoun at strata-consulting.com, find us there.
Happy to talk to people, love making connections and networking and learning about what
they do, what we do, and just seeing where partnerships might emerge.
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, have a good one.